Wright had wanted his friend to redesign the whole home and give it a modern, oblong shape. His friend thought the design a little too radical for Emporia in 1916.

The architect's friend was William Allen White, one of the most influential American journalists and writers of the first half of the 20th century. White edited The Emporia Gazette for nearly five decades until his death in 1944.

ON THE NET:

William Allen White Library at Emporia State University: www.emporia.edu/libsv/wawl.htm

Emporia Gazette site on White family: www.williamallenwhite.org

Kansas State Historical Society: www.kshs.org

Bill on William Allen White home was SB 309.

Work will begin soon to turn White's home into a state historic site, thanks to a law enacted this year. The legendary editor's home still looks lived-in, as if its occupants have taken a vacation and plan to return.

White's family and Emporia residents hope the home will draw tourists, but they see it as more than a monument to White. After all, there is already a stone statue in his honor in the Capitol rotunda.

Instead, they hope visitors will sense the small-town friendliness of a man who was a confidante to presidents. In his first editorial for the Gazette, White declared that the newspaper's new editor, "hopes always to sign 'from Emporia' after his name when he is abroad."

"This is probably the most appropriate manner in which we can honor his contribution to his state, by the preservation of his home," Gov. Bill Graves said.

Of historical importance

White, born in Emporia in 1868, returned to his hometown in 1895 to take over The Gazette.

He won the Pulitzer Prize for a 1922 editorial, "Letter to an Anxious Friend." He first came to national attention for his 1896 editorial, "What's the Matter with Kansas?," an attack on the Populist Party.

Six presidents visited his home, starting with Theodore Roosevelt. The four-post bed they slept in is now in the west room on the second-floor, opposite the editor's study.

But Barbara Walker, his granddaughter, said the home is about more than the famous people who visited it. She is The Gazette's senior editor and her husband, David, was its publisher until Jan. 1.

Barbara Walker remembers the home as a friendly place when she was a little girl. She said her grandfather sometimes invited two or three blocks' worth of neighbors to dinner. Their table could expand to fill the entire dining room and sometimes pushed her grandmother's seat outside in the summer.

The legendary editor also had a piano in his living room, though he couldn't read music.

"My grandfather loved to play the piano," Barbara Walker said. "He played by ear."

Feels like home

White began renting the home in 1899 and bought it in 1901 for $6,000.

"In Emporia, we were rebuilding the town," White recalled in his autobiography. "We had been building square houses, two stories with rather wide eaves, sometimes square houses with brick or stone for the first story and wood for the second story. They were called shirt-waist houses and were right fancy."

A fire destroyed the attic floor of the house in 1920, and the White family moved out for about 18 months while the home was rebuilt. They added its present kitchen then, as well as Wright's staircase.

Four years before the fire, Wright had urged White to redo his home and gave him a design. White resisted.

"It was so extreme, they decided it was wrong for Emporia," David Walker said.

After White's death and the death of his wife, his son, William Lindsay White, and his son's wife, Kathrine, moved into the home.

He died in 1973, and Kathrine White continued to live in the home until her death in 1988. One of her decorating touches dominates the view from the top of Wright's staircase. She framed the double doors of the master bedroom -- the one William Allen White used as well -- with planks from the original floor of the Gazette newsroom.

The house was opened for private tours after 1988 as the family looked for ways to preserve the home.

An act of preservation

The new law had the support of the White family, Emporia residents, many journalists and the William Allen White Foundation at The University of Kansas.

It took effect April 26 and allows the Kansas State Historical Society to take possession of the home. The society hopes to start assessing the home's condition and cataloguing features to be preserved this summer.

The Walkers are sorting through boxes and examining the home's contents. Barbara Walker said shelves have to be examined book-by-book, because her grandfather often stuck letters from their authors -- such as Sinclair Lewis, Joseph Conrad and Edna Ferber -- inside.

Under the new law, federal funds, money from local governments or donations will pay for the site's operating costs. Federal funds of $700,000 have been set aside to preserve the home.

Still undecided is whether the historical society also would take possession of the nearby home of White's mother and turn it into a visitor's center.

The editor's home needs new wiring, and the back porch needs to be rebuilt. Plans call for removing vines from its exterior.

But, David Walker added, "Mainly what we have to do in the house is cosmetic."

Barbara Walker hopes the new historic site will convey the hospitality William Allen White offered -- as well as touch on the lives of her parents.

Emporia officials hope the home will not only draw tourists but also preserve White's legacy.

"It's a grand old house and, of course, there's so much history to it," said Mayor Tom Myers. "It's amazing, all the people who trouped through this house."